[Feedback Friday #60] - November 3, 2017

News & General Discussion
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Feedback Friday #60 is CLOSED. The XMAS edition begins December 1!!! This will be a long one, which we’ll keep open through the end of the year, because … it’s the giving season!

XMAS is next!

Want design feedback for your new game? Then you’ve found the right thread! Post here to get precious player feedback. Discuss until we lock the thread to start the two week break.

How To Ask For Feedback

  • Show - Pics, videos, or best of all, a playable game!
  • Be Concise - Who’s got time for Wall 'O Text? Less is more

How To Give Feedback

  • Be Positive - Finding redeeming qualities in the worst of games, is in itself a game
  • Focus On The Design - Not the designer
  • Be Specific - “Your game sucks!” is for nubs

What To Show

  • Minimally Viable Product (MVP) - Core game play >>> everything else
  • How To Scope Small (Unity tutorial)

Gigi

[PS - Feedback Friday #59 is here ]

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Hello,
My current project is Wake of Poseidon, a sidescrolling beat 'em up with laser guns.

I’ve been working on a project for around six weeks now and I’m quite desperate for some feedback on the feel and controls of the game. I’m hoping I can get some here. If you are interested in giving it a try, the download link can be found here http://ancientcraftgames.com/WoP/WoP.zip I also have a couple videos for everyone to preview.

Currently the game is still pre-alpha but getting very near to feature-complete. There are still lots of misplaced graphics, missing sounds, bugs, and exploits. As well, the game isn’t very well balanced yet. For now I’m just focusing on two major issues: Player movement, and hit detection.

What I’d Like to Know
-How do the controls feel? Are they comfortable? Intuitive?
-How does motion, jumping, and attacking feel in the game?
-How does the hit-detection feel? Does it make sense? Does is seem fair?
-What do you think of the aim-assist?

How to Play
The game is still lacking in some back end systems (loading, saving, menus) so you’ll need to navigate to the option ‘New Game’, select your character, and then choose ‘Level 1’. Other options will have no effect. The levels are semi-randomized and two weapons will appear at the beginning of the level. Be sure to grab them since nothing drops from mobs yet.

Important! There are two playable characters. They both have slightly different movement speeds and health, try them both. Better yet, play with a friend in local co-op!

Controls (XBox) - Limited keyboard support! Gamepad recommended!
-Move → Left Stick / Arrow keys / Wads
-Jump → A / Space
-Shoot → X / L-Mouse / Ctrl
-Interact/Grab Item → B / E
-Swap Weapons → Y / F
-Strafe → Left Trigger / Shift / R-Mouse
-Pause → Menu / Esc

Story
The god Poseidon has gone mad and wages war on the entire galaxy! Enter his secret temple on a long-forgotten world. Fight through his hoards of minions and champions. Stop at nothing to put and end to this madness once and for all in - The Wake of Poseidon

1 Like
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Would it be possible to post a WebGL build?

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Sadly I rely quite heavily the audio mixer for balancing and code emission for generating databinding, so no. Out of curiosity, is this an issue of not wanting to download yet another file or is it more a worry of downloading unknown files from unknown sources? If it’s the latter would it be better if I provided a link to an itch profile or somesuch?

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Kind of. At the time, I wasn’t at the development machine where I have a sandboxed VM set up to to test downloads off the Internet.

Left stick for movement and A for jump are classic, and the responsiveness is good. I’d prefer to fire with the right trigger instead of X. It makes it easier to jump and fire at the same time. Or, if you’re going for more of a twin stick shooter, it would be nice to use the right stick to unload a constant barrage of bullets. Speaking of bullets, the size and speed of enemy bullets are perfect. They’re slow enough that you can make tactical plans, but there are enough of them that they can swarm you if you’re not careful.

As I mentioned above, the responsiveness and control-feel is good. I may be jumping ahead of what you’re looking for in terms of feedback, but I feel like more of a grounding of why the player is there and his objective would deepen the gameplay. It doesn’t need to be a heavy narrative thing so much as a general sense of place and purpose.

The hit detection feels good. I didn’t ever feel like I got cheated, and I felt like I could move around and reliably know when I’d dodge or get hit. Whenever I got hit, I deserved it because I hadn’t timed something right, or I had chosen poor tactics and backed myself into a corner.

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Not the first time I’ve heard of this. Luckily I’m using rewired so it should be fairly simple to add a feature that allows players to change controls in-game.

I’ve thought about letting player aim with the right stick but actually shooting wouldn’t work very well. Some weapons are manual fire, plus I’ve decided the next feature added will be a deflection that shares the same input as shooting. My hope is that players can then get out of impossible situations by sacrificing attacks. This’ll need some player feedback for sure though.

I always welcome any input. I just wanted to give some specific things to look for. This is actually the second time this week I’ve been told this exact thing. Time to start on that I suppose. For now, I’ll probably just add a quick two-sentence blurb in the opening post.

Spoiler: Please play the demo if you can before reading this part. It might influence you’re perception if you read this first.

Glad to hear that. It’s a bit of a relief but I’m still going to need more testing. I’m really worried about this because I’m using screen-space hit detection when the player is grounded. This means that it is very easy and intuitive for players to dodge attacks when everyone is on the same plane. But it gets trickier when enemies are attacking from different heights. Bullets that seem like they should whiz overhead or have no effect on the player hiding behind a wall, tend to hit them anyway. To make it more confusing, when jumping it converts to normal 3D world space detection so that players can actually jump over projectiles.

All-in-all, the fact that you didn’t notice this much is probably a good thing. But when players start playing longer sessions I’m thinking they might notice.

Thanks TonyLi!

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@Sluggy1 - My pleasure! Wake of Poseidon is off to a great start. It was already fun to play. Oh, speaking of the title, the “K” in the title image is very hard to read. I had forgotten the title when I started the game, and it totally looked like Waxe of Poseidon.

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@Sluggy1 - This is an absolutely beautiful alpha. The game looks incredibly fun - a hard, stick shooter, with thematic graphics. The jump feature adds a nice depth/twitch ability that is rarely seen in stick shooters. I suspect if fleshed out, this could be a very successful Indie Steam title. Not sure what your plans are. You may find it beneficial to get 1-2 hours of content, then get it out into the world. It’s good enough for people to buy enjoy, which will then raise awareness, get you experience releasing titles, and raise a few bucks. Then, you can start on Poseidon 2 - BlahBlah’s Revenge. Fantastic work!

Other thoughts:

  • You may consider adding the jump ability mid-game - as an unlock. This feeds into mystery box, delight, and also reduces the difficulty aspects of flow at the beginning. It will also let the player master dodging, before learning to use Jump as a crutch. It will further create a nice spike on the interest curve (aka Dragon’s Tooth).
  • Weapon unlocks are also something that can be added slowly, over time.

PS - for what it’s worth, I had little interest in the backstory/cutscenes/why. Give me a brief ‘Save the world. Kill the baddies’ and I’m ready to go.

Gigi

PS - I didn’t play it, cause downloads (aka lazy).

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Thanks! Glad to hear the encouragement and, more relevantly, I’m glad to get some confirmation. The intent is for this to be a short, simple, couch-sitter that might have just enough success to keep me afloat while I work on the next project. It’s good to know that someone else sees the same potential and that helps drive me further.

The idea of unlocakble / upgradable moves is very interesting and I wish I’d had that bug in my ear earlier. At this point, however, I’m fairly feature locked due to the way I’m designing content so that will have to be thrown into the ideas-for-the-next-game pile. It’s meant to play more like a Contra or Double Dragon game, where you have quick and action-packed play sessions that can see the game through in an hour or so. As a result I wanted to have everything out of the gate at the start.

I feel the same. I’m not a writer and I won’t pretend to be one. The premise is designed to be simple, quick to grasp, and maybe even a little over the top and self mocking.

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A fantastic game this week! Kudos to @Sluggy1 for sharing his game with us. Looking forward to seeing it released. And Feedback Friday #60 now draws to a close. Looking forward to #61, which opens on December 1! XMAS GAMES!

Gigi

PS - for our friends in the states, have a great ThanksGiving!